As
the Proms get under way, we ask their director, Roger Wright, to
convert writer and rock'n'roller Laura Barton into a classical music fan
Interview by
Emine Saner
Proms director Roger Wright tries to
convert writer and rock'n'roller Laura Barton to the joys of classical
music. Photograph: Felix Clay for the Guardian
The BBC Proms, the world's greatest classical music festival, begins this week. Can Roger Wright, controller of Radio 3
and director of the Proms, convince Laura Barton, writer and
rock'n'roll lover, of the joys of classical music? Emine Saner listens
in.
Roger Wright: The original aim of the Proms was to bring the best possible classical music to the largest possible audience, and that vision has stayed the same. There are still up to 1,400 £5 standing tickets on the day, but thanks to technology, there is the possibility of reaching a much wider audience than simply those who get into venues. I don't know how the audience has changed in terms of its demographic since the late 19th century, but there is no doubt that it attracts a huge number of younger people, and all our figures show that there are people who are coming for the first time to a classical music concert.
Laura Barton: I like the Proms, particularly the idea of cheap tickets, it's a wonderful event and a brilliant way to be introduced to classical music for newcomers, or younger people. But away from the Proms, the problem I have with classical music is the lack of democracy – not just to do with how much it costs to go to the opera. I remember reading something – do you know Jonathan Rose's The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes? – about how many working-class people loved to go to classical music concerts, and then it stopped. That was probably around the same time rock'n'roll was born. Now there is a weird aristocracy of music, where people automatically assume classical music is superior to rock'n'roll. My problem is with the way it is represented and regarded.
RW: Classical music, itself, I don't see it as a hierarchy. I recognise that there is great classical music, but there is frankly also second-rate classical music. There is great hip-hop, but clearly there is also second- and third-rate hip-hop. I also think that opera gets a bit of a bad press. Do you think football is elitist? How much would it cost you to go to see even a Championship game, let alone a Premier League game?
LB: I agree, but if you are trying to be introduced to that world, you can get into football far more readily than you can get into opera.
RW: There was something in that postwar period: it was when the Arts Council began, the Third Programme – Radio 3's ancestor – began. It was Festival of Britain time. There was all that sense of the working person being culturally engaged. Are you suggesting rock'n'roll came out of that social situation …
LB: I'm not saying it came out of it, but I think there came another form of music that was more readily available to more people, and I wonder if that is where that division, that strange hierarchy, started. When rock'n'roll was born, it related more obviously to people's experience, because of the language it was sung in, because it used instruments that were more readily available to those people, so it was about attainability and identifiability. At that point, classical music might have started to seem more remote.
RW: There are loads of people who love rock who don't play the guitar or sing.
LB: Of course, but think about early blues songs – they're singing about a common experience of that community. I suppose rock'n'roll is a similar thing.
RW: One of the great things about music is you can say things in music that you can't say in words. That's one of the reasons why a lot of people get their first experience of classical music through films. That's about playing to emotions, and it can be incredibly powerful.
LB: It's not that I don't like classical music. I do, and I have friends who try to get me into it.
RW: Is it that in some way you're socially or historically uncomfortable with it?
LB: For me, it is the number of people I have met, predominantly people who are older than me, maybe from a different background, who have dismissed the fact that I love the music that I love, and think I should get into this. That's what I mean about a hierarchy: "This is nice but this is sort of adolescent, and eventually you'll graduate to liking this." That's what I resent, or feel uncomfortable with. A kind of loftiness.
RW: You can't criticise classical music simply because of the attitudes of some of the audience …
LB: Absolutely, but I think it's a real shame that getting to the music sometimes is hard. There's a programme I love on Radio 3 – Words and Music – which has no presenter, and they play some of my favourite soul songs, but they will play classical music and they do readings. It makes it a very human experience and that's ideal to me; give it a human context. I live in east London and we have little festivals with new bands you can discover, and I would love to hear more classical music in venues that weren't necessarily appointed for it.
RW: I would say that is happening, but it may not be happening enough. One of the issues that is very hard for classical music is its acoustic nature. You can deal with most acoustics in pop music if you're amplified, but you can't amplify classical music. It's one of the reasons you can't go down a big stadium route, but if you think about what James Rhodes [the classical pianist] is doing, he's out there playing in different venues. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment are doing late-night concerts where people can just pitch up.
LB: I think that's important to take away some of the preciousness. One of the things I love about rock'n'roll is, I don't want to say scuzziness, but it's almost tactile. I'd like to see that, or be in a room and feel that, with classical music.
RW: It's hard when so much of the music is so quiet. Performers have got better at introducing things and becoming more comfortable talking to audiences. A lot of those barriers are being broken down. The other thing to say is to keep pushing the message that there is some classical music for everybody. Give it a try.
LB: One of the greatest things that has happened is the fact that there is so much music online, and a teenager in Doncaster can find out about Chopin, and not have to go into a record store and feel embarrassed and think: "I don't know how to pronounce it." But I think finding information is hard if you don't subscribe to Gramophone magazine, and don't know where to look.
RW: You could try Building a Library on Radio 3, and the Penguin Guide to Classical Music. Unlike the pop world you need to find your way through a complicated catalogue because there are so many recordings of the same piece. But whatever your interest, you've always got to do a bit of work.
Roger Wright: The original aim of the Proms was to bring the best possible classical music to the largest possible audience, and that vision has stayed the same. There are still up to 1,400 £5 standing tickets on the day, but thanks to technology, there is the possibility of reaching a much wider audience than simply those who get into venues. I don't know how the audience has changed in terms of its demographic since the late 19th century, but there is no doubt that it attracts a huge number of younger people, and all our figures show that there are people who are coming for the first time to a classical music concert.
Laura Barton: I like the Proms, particularly the idea of cheap tickets, it's a wonderful event and a brilliant way to be introduced to classical music for newcomers, or younger people. But away from the Proms, the problem I have with classical music is the lack of democracy – not just to do with how much it costs to go to the opera. I remember reading something – do you know Jonathan Rose's The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes? – about how many working-class people loved to go to classical music concerts, and then it stopped. That was probably around the same time rock'n'roll was born. Now there is a weird aristocracy of music, where people automatically assume classical music is superior to rock'n'roll. My problem is with the way it is represented and regarded.
RW: Classical music, itself, I don't see it as a hierarchy. I recognise that there is great classical music, but there is frankly also second-rate classical music. There is great hip-hop, but clearly there is also second- and third-rate hip-hop. I also think that opera gets a bit of a bad press. Do you think football is elitist? How much would it cost you to go to see even a Championship game, let alone a Premier League game?
LB: I agree, but if you are trying to be introduced to that world, you can get into football far more readily than you can get into opera.
RW: There was something in that postwar period: it was when the Arts Council began, the Third Programme – Radio 3's ancestor – began. It was Festival of Britain time. There was all that sense of the working person being culturally engaged. Are you suggesting rock'n'roll came out of that social situation …
LB: I'm not saying it came out of it, but I think there came another form of music that was more readily available to more people, and I wonder if that is where that division, that strange hierarchy, started. When rock'n'roll was born, it related more obviously to people's experience, because of the language it was sung in, because it used instruments that were more readily available to those people, so it was about attainability and identifiability. At that point, classical music might have started to seem more remote.
RW: There are loads of people who love rock who don't play the guitar or sing.
LB: Of course, but think about early blues songs – they're singing about a common experience of that community. I suppose rock'n'roll is a similar thing.
RW: One of the great things about music is you can say things in music that you can't say in words. That's one of the reasons why a lot of people get their first experience of classical music through films. That's about playing to emotions, and it can be incredibly powerful.
LB: It's not that I don't like classical music. I do, and I have friends who try to get me into it.
RW: Is it that in some way you're socially or historically uncomfortable with it?
LB: For me, it is the number of people I have met, predominantly people who are older than me, maybe from a different background, who have dismissed the fact that I love the music that I love, and think I should get into this. That's what I mean about a hierarchy: "This is nice but this is sort of adolescent, and eventually you'll graduate to liking this." That's what I resent, or feel uncomfortable with. A kind of loftiness.
RW: You can't criticise classical music simply because of the attitudes of some of the audience …
LB: Absolutely, but I think it's a real shame that getting to the music sometimes is hard. There's a programme I love on Radio 3 – Words and Music – which has no presenter, and they play some of my favourite soul songs, but they will play classical music and they do readings. It makes it a very human experience and that's ideal to me; give it a human context. I live in east London and we have little festivals with new bands you can discover, and I would love to hear more classical music in venues that weren't necessarily appointed for it.
RW: I would say that is happening, but it may not be happening enough. One of the issues that is very hard for classical music is its acoustic nature. You can deal with most acoustics in pop music if you're amplified, but you can't amplify classical music. It's one of the reasons you can't go down a big stadium route, but if you think about what James Rhodes [the classical pianist] is doing, he's out there playing in different venues. The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment are doing late-night concerts where people can just pitch up.
LB: I think that's important to take away some of the preciousness. One of the things I love about rock'n'roll is, I don't want to say scuzziness, but it's almost tactile. I'd like to see that, or be in a room and feel that, with classical music.
RW: It's hard when so much of the music is so quiet. Performers have got better at introducing things and becoming more comfortable talking to audiences. A lot of those barriers are being broken down. The other thing to say is to keep pushing the message that there is some classical music for everybody. Give it a try.
LB: One of the greatest things that has happened is the fact that there is so much music online, and a teenager in Doncaster can find out about Chopin, and not have to go into a record store and feel embarrassed and think: "I don't know how to pronounce it." But I think finding information is hard if you don't subscribe to Gramophone magazine, and don't know where to look.
RW: You could try Building a Library on Radio 3, and the Penguin Guide to Classical Music. Unlike the pop world you need to find your way through a complicated catalogue because there are so many recordings of the same piece. But whatever your interest, you've always got to do a bit of work.
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